ALIX RAMSAY

Andy Murray is one match away from making history. Remarkable history. Unbelievable history.

He is through to his first French Open final and if tomorrow he can play against Novak Djokovic the way he played against Stan Wawrinka yesterday, he will be the first British man in 81 years to lift the Coupe des Mousquetaires.

Murray played the match of his life to beat Wawrinka, the defending champion, 6-4, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 and afterwards was clearly emotional.

“I was obviously pumped; I have won the match. Pumped to get to the final for the first time,” he said. “It was a tough atmosphere today, as well. I handled that extremely well.

“Then to reach the finals of the French the first time, that’s a big moment for me. It’s not an easy thing to do. I said a few years ago, I never really expected to be able to do that. To play the way that I did today after a tough start to the tournament, yeah, was just really, really happy with that.”

From twice being two points away from defeat in the first round against Radek Stepanek, Murray is now three sets away from becoming the champion. And by reaching the final here, he becomes only the tenth man in the Open era to have played in the final of all four grand slam tournaments.

“That is big,” Murray said. “It means a lot, to have reached the final of all four slams is not an easy thing to do and at this stage of my career I’ve had to make a lot of improvements, a lot of changes to my clay court game, so to do it at the tenth attempt here makes me feel very proud and there’s been a lot of hard work gone into it.

“Especially with the guys that are around just now, it’s not been easy. I lost three semis here: I lost two to Rafa [Nadal] and one to Novak last year. So beating Stan, he’s obviously won this event before. The further he gets in tournaments he tends to play better, as well. So to have done it against him means a lot.”

Tomorrow Murray faces Djokovic for the 34th time in his career. It is their seventh meeting in a grand slam final – Murray has won two of them – but for the first time, they will meet on a level playing field. In every other grand slam final, Djokovic went into the match as either the defending champion or a former champion. This time, they are both desperate to win for the first time and for Djokovic, a victory would complete his set of grand slam trophies.

“It’s obviously a very big match for both of us,” Murray said. “Novak trying to win the career slam, and me trying to win my first French Open, as well.”